NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS - 2022! 🥳🎸🥂

Happy New Year to the whole tonebase Guitar community!

As much we may love the guitar, it’s not so easy to set goals and stay committed to realizing them over the course of a year… at least, it’s not so easy to do this alone, which is how I often try (and fail) to undertake such goals.

That’s why I’ve created this thread. Here is a place for anyone and everyone in the tonebase community to come up with your individual guitar-related New Year’s resolutions and support each other in our efforts to realize them.

PARTICIPATION

  1. Make a post below to announce your guitar-goals for the new year,
  2. over the coming days, weeks, and months, use the sub-thread of your own post to keep us all updated on your progress (videos encouraged!)
  3. and in the meantime, scroll through to read each other’s resolutions and click “reply” to offer advice or words of encouragement.

RULES

  • Please try to keep conversations within sub-threads, and only make a single new post to share your resolutions. This will help keep the mega-thread clean so we can navigate more easily and check in on each other.
  • Keep in mind that there are people of all ages and ability levels in the tonebase community, so if you’re one of the more advanced ones don’t gloat about it, and if you’re a novice don’t be shy.
  • If you don’t want to share your goals, you’re still welcome to comment on other members’ thread.

MY RESOLUTIONS

  • I will go first! Lately, I have been very occupied with teaching and recording, but from February on I will be able to dedicate more time to my personal projects. I recently found an old concert program of mine, which included pieces like the Grand Ouverture by Giuliani, multiple solo pieces by Barrios and Mertz, BWV 997, Torroba's Sonatina and Regondi's Introduction et Caprice.
    • I resolve to re-visit old pieces and discover new pieces, alternating every month to build a solo concert repertoire.
    • I resolve to have at least 30min of concert repertoire ready by the end of the year
    • To get there, I resolve to practice the piece a minimum of 30 minutes every weekday.
    • I commit to mindful practice, enjoying playing the piece slowly and carefully and always listening.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN! LET'S GO!  🎉 🎸🤞

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  • My goals are twofold. Having focus instead of constantly noodling is a problem for me and the last community challenge gave me the confidence that I could take a piece and get it performance ready in a month. My first goal is to take one or two pieces, depending on the length and difficulty, each month and work them up to performance readiness by the end of the month. Similar to what Martin said, this should help me build a relatively substantial performance repertoire by the end of the year. 

    Also, the community concert was my first performance experience and I didn't have a nervous breakdown so I want to challenge myself to perform at any opportunity here and/or in the analog world. 

    Wishing everyone a great 2023. Thanks for all the support and advice from this great community. 

    Like 9
      • David Krupka
      • Amateur guitarist/lutenist
      • David_Krupka
      • 1 yr ago
      • Reported - view

      Steve Price I think the idea of taking one or two pieces a month and getting them performance-ready makes a lot of sense. I find I tend to learn pieces to the point where I can play them adequately for my own purposes, but not to the point where I can perform them at a level I would want to listen to. That last ten or twenty percent seems to involve more work than I am inclined to do. It's something I definitely need to change in my approach to learning!

      Like 2
    • After the fairly heavy Cançó Trista I worked up last month, I chose the lighter Zapateo (or Zapateado depending) arrangement from Leo Brouwer's Dos Aires Populares Cubanos. Like most of Brouwer's work it's idiomatic for the guitar and doesn't present any impenetrable technical challenges beyond getting it to tempo, but again like most of Brouwer's work there's a lot going on in the background that needs paying attention to. One challenge/pleasure will be deciding how to play it since nearly every version I've heard is different in regard to repeats and adhering to instructions.

      Since the Zapateo is only a single page of music, I decided to add a second piece and chose Antonio Lauro's Ana Cristina. It's one of his simpler pieces but it's a beautiful song with each measure divided into the archetypal Venezuelean 8th note triplet followed by two 8th notes.

      Like 1
    • Steve Price this sounds great Steve. With a piece to a performance level per month; you will have a good pools of repertoire to play at any occassions, analogue (physical) or digital (online). I would love to see you more in next tonebase actitivites and concerts. Cheers. 

      Like 1
    • Steve Price My first month of the New Year's Resolution is complete! Eleven more to go, lol.

      Not perfect but they're memorized and I can start working on better interpretations. 

      For February I want to see if I can get Con Sabor by Jorge Ritter down. He's one of my favorites and I want to play all three of the pieces from the set but this one may be more in my range for now. I'd also like to get Moreno-Torroba's Alba de Tormes together. There are so many wonderful pieces in the Castles set so I wanted to get to work on some of them.

      Edit 10 Feb: With the "Music You Love" challenge going on simultaneously, I'm going to push the Ritter to another month to focus on my submission in the challenge. I overdid it in January and paid the price so I need to be a little more conscious this month.

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    • I really struggled to get a clean take of this piece. It doesn't really seem all that hard there are just a couple of places that I found really tough. Segovia's fingerings I found to be easier than some of the others so it will just take more work. Now that I have this down I can focus more on interpretation. 

      I've been going in a little bit different direction lately so for March I was going to work on a transcription of Bartok's Choral from For Children sz. 42.

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      • Jack Stewart
      • Retired
      • Jack_Stewart
      • 1 yr ago
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      Steve Price Both of those were beautiful, Steve. You are sailing thru your list, and at a very high level.

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      • Jack Stewart
      • Retired
      • Jack_Stewart
      • 1 yr ago
      • Reported - view

      Steve Price That piece  was very nice as well, Steve.

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    • Jack Stewart Thanks, Jack. I appreciate it. It's definitely keeping me busy, but I feel more focused so that's good as opposed noodling all the time like I used to. 

      Like
    • I'm cheating this month and using pieces that I worked on for other challenges. I've noticed how quickly my tastes and focus can change so some things I'm interested in can quickly become less interesting in a couple of weeks or even days. But, I'm getting pieces to the point of recording which I guess is the goal overall. For April, I will try again to work up Jorge Ritter's Con Sabor.

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    • Here are a couple of pieces I worked up for the Transcription and Spanish challenges. Although they are great learning experiences, I realized I was focusing on the challenges and not leaving enough time for the repertoire I really want to play. It's an easy enough fix just to dial it back a little and look for ways that the challenges crossover into my own work.  

      Like 1
  • I started back here two years ago with a personal goal to rebuild myself as a musician and classical guitarist after being inactive for too long. By the time, thanks to martin , I learned how to produce good audio and video and started out a YT channel. This year I want to go a step further…

    • Be more active as a community member on Tonebase
    • Rebuild myself as a live performer
    • Build up a base concert repertoire
    • Produce and publish a digital single and EP
    • Produce more videos for YT
    Like 7
      • David Krupka
      • Amateur guitarist/lutenist
      • David_Krupka
      • 1 yr ago
      • Reported - view

      Blaise Laflamme Well, I see you've set yourself just a few modest goals, Blaise! 😍 I look forward to hearing more of your playing in the coming year. I really enjoy your YT channel - especially your beautiful tribute to Gizmo and Jack!

      Like 1
    • David Krupka thank you for your support 😅…  I had to commit to some ambitious goals to ensure some or part of them are started and ultimately achieved! 😵

      Like
    • Blaise Laflamme that is an exciting plan Blaise! You are a great player! And your Mics are great! I love your playing and recordings. They are so musical and high quality! Keep up producing recordings for your YouTube channel! 

      Like 1
    • Khiem Nguyen thank you Khiem for your generous comments 🙏, I try to do my best while I learn all this stuff.

      Like 1
    • Blaise Laflamme I am sure you can do it Blaise!

      Like 1
    • Khiem Nguyen we'll see by the end of the year! 😅

      Like 1
      • Moyses Lopes
      • Classical Guitarist and Electroacoustic Interpreter
      • Moses
      • 1 yr ago
      • Reported - view

      Blaise Laflamme , your YouTube channel is great, you are a great guitarist! Your goals are really ambitious, I'll looking forward to see the results in your channel and here in Tonebase, of course. Regards!

      Like
    • Moyses Lopes thank you for your kind words Moyses, I wish you a great 2023 and I hope to see and hear more of you, because you're also a great guitarist!

      Like
    • David Krupka
    • Amateur guitarist/lutenist
    • David_Krupka
    • 1 yr ago
    • Reported - view

    I don't normally set goals for the new year, because, well, I'm, like, kinda perfect already! Of course, that's not something I would ever gloat about ... you know, just sayin'. Ahem, well maybe a few improvements here or there might not hurt ... But seriously, my one ToneBase resolution needs to be that I will start posting videos, however inadequate they might be, of my rather feeble attempts at making music. (I have for too long given myself the excuse of not having recovered from an unfortunate injury, but as it's doubtful I'll ever recover, it's time to move on.) I plan to begin with the coming "Landslog' challenge. I did participate in the original challenge, but didn't manage to get anything to the point where I felt comfortable presenting it. This time, I trust, will be different ...

    Like 4
    • David Krupka I’m happy you commit to produce more videos of music you’re learning, I can’t wait to participate with you in the Landslog challenge starting next week.

      Like
  • Nice initiative! I spent this last day of 2022 (such a painful year this was!) without touching my guitar and

    1) I promise myself to allow one day of the week like that, and be confident that my technique will not suffer from that relaxation.
    2) I promise also to keep always a 30 minute or so repertoire more or less ready-for-concert and prepare not more than 2 new pieces at the time to bring them up to performance level. If I have more time I can read through some new repertoire or relearn/ revise old repertoire,

    3) Be less ambitious (don’t try to play so many different pieces, just because everyone is playing them) , but at the same time be more ambitious (learn longer and more challenging pieces, just because they are meaningful to me) it’s all about making the right choices, by far not the easiest task….

    Wishing you all an inspiring 2023

    Like 7
    • joosje I’m looking forward to listen to the beautiful music you’re creating and sharing with us.

      Like
    • joosje Being less ambitious and more focused is key for me as well. One of my favorite things is discovering new music so for years I've bounced from piece to piece without ever getting anything polished. This year will hopefully be about quality, not quantity.

      Good luck in the new year and congrats again on your performance in the concert. That Losy was really beautifully played. 

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